As a leader, you are responsible for building the best team to tackle your company’s projects, challenges, and initiatives. However, despite our best intentions, something can still get in the way of building the most talented teams: our own hidden biases. Most of us are not aware we have them. For example, we may favor a candidate who attended our alma mater. We may assume a person who rides the bus to work will often be late. We may worry a candidate over 60 won’t stay long at the organization. Unchecked, these hidden biases can sabotage our efforts to be inclusive or to recruit the most talented candidates. On the other hand, there are countless benefits to preventing these biases from entering the hiring process. Inclusive hiring improves your recruiting efforts, boosts retention, and builds a positive culture of mutual respect at your workplace. The easiest way for a bias to take root in your leadership is to let it go unrecognized. Start by digging into your own history and hiring tendencies to identify what might be a bias for you, whether it’s age, lifestyle, appearance, background, or something else. Here are some additional tips:
Look for Affinity Bias.
Evaluate your existing team. Do your team members represent a wide range of backgrounds, ages, lifestyles, and experiences? Or do many of them have similar experiences to your own?
Assess Job Descriptions.
Even the most minute details in your job description can impact the diversity of your candidate pool. Are all the requirements you’re asking for necessary to perform the job well? Or is something like a four-year traditional education getting in the way of including experienced talent?
Cast A Wider Net.
You might need to adjust your search parameters to include candidates with strong transferable skills rather than industry experience. You may also look for organizations that attract minority candidates or expand university recruiting to schools with diverse populations. The bottom line is to find ways to source talent outside of your own network.
Conduct Blind Resume Reviews.
Omit names, academic institutions, and even company names from resumes so you can focus on skills and experience. This might give you an entirely different perspective.
Offer Interview Training.
Make sure your entire team has been trained to understand unconscious bias. Education is the best way to decrease biases in the recruiting process. Create a structured, objective interview process that includes diverse panels.
Jolene Risch is the founder and CEO of Risch results, a national search firm and executive recruiter.
